Would you think that MS would have won E3? I mean, currently it will be on both platforms, so players can just play the PS4 version without DRM if they don't like the Xbox 1, but I think MS would have sealed the deal with "We don't care what you do Sony, but we have the COD fanbase". Seems like a bad play for MS not to have gotten Ghosts as an Xbox exclusive. They needed "that" game to draw people in (COD is bigger then Halo)

They still will get map packs first and all that crap. And the COD crowd often streams on twtich so it will even out.

And I hate how people still think you can "win" E3.

It would cost way to much money to have it an exclusive. Also, it would probably never happen, Activision wouldn't allow it, more money for them on every console.

I can't even imagine what an obscene amount of money would be needed to lock down CoD as an exclusive.

Unless Microsoft was willing to pay waaaay out the ass to make sure they got exclusivity there is no way Activision would ignore 2 whole platforms worth of profit. (PS3/PS4)

Won E3? No. I doubt most people who only play Call of Duty even know what E3 is.

Sold the most consoles at launch? Maybe, but the amount of money that Microsoft would have to pay Activision to make up for lost revenue from other versions would be astronomical.

You clearly don't pay much attention to the dedicated video game fans crowd.

Ghosts is coming out for Wii U so that proves that it will never be a exclusive

If you want to see how silly this question is, ask "If COD: Ghosts was a WiiU would Nintendo have won E3?"

Call of Duty as a whole is losing steam it wouldn't be a worthwhile investment. And it only takes a comparison to the player counts of the 360 and PS3 versions of Black Ops 2 to realize that even the Xbox brand is losing steam with CoD as well. Never realized it till I ended up with two copies of the game and decided to compare them. Its not insignificant either. There is typically 150-300k more people playing on the PS3 at any given time during the week and during peak hours on a weekend they are roughly equal. Its super interesting because it flies in the face of the narrative that Xbox is the go to place for CoD. Its amazing what marketing spin can do.

I could imagine the amount of money Microsoft would have to throw at Activision to make Call of Duty a console exclusive. $500 million a year maybe?

I think with a franchise that sells that much, it's simply infeasible to pay for exclusivity. The amount of money they'd be losing by not going multiplatform is incredible.

Not sure if CoD would be that much bigger than Halo if you made it exclusive.

Why even bother with those "What if..." scenarios? It didn't happen and nobody can tell what would have happened.

No? CoD's not exactly the type of game that would make me want an Xbox One, and I have to imagine that the CoD audience generally got what they wanted out of the console announcement itself, at least in part.

What if I could eat pancakes all day long and not get fat?

Do you have some sort of alarm that goes off anytime Microsoft/X1 is mentioned? You pop up in every thread that says anything remotely negative about either. The system is going to be fine. It does not need a protector.

Also, the reason these companies hold "press conferences" and attend E3 is to pimp out their brand and hopefully get consumers/media talking about them rather than their competitors. The one with more positive buzz after three days does in a sense "win" E3. (Unless you believe that any press is good press)

microsoft should pay to have exclusive rights to levels where you play as the dog from fable and behind the scenes videos where peter molyneux talks about how this is revolutionising gaming.

If Activision was willing to make the deal I think so. The dudes that call themselves gamers and only play CoD and every other regurgitated version of it would boost Xbox One sales by quite a bit.

The problem obviously being that Microsoft kind of bombed at E3, which is why Activision wouldn't/won't even consider such a suggestion despite the no trading policy of Xbone...which doesn't really matter for CoD.

Furthermore if Microsoft did alright at E3 they wouldn't have to spend God knows how much to acquire exclusive rights for CoD.

Never going happen because Activision wants to make money.

I had a tangential thought about the glut of shooters that will be next gen launch day games. Does anyone think regardless of console these shooters will cannibalize each other's audience?

For Xbox, CoD, BF4, and Titanfall all launch near one another. CoD and BF4 are also current gen. For PS4, CoD, BF4, Killzone, and a group of F2P shooters as well as current gen ports.

The player base for next gen games will be small at the beginning and they will be competing with a huge audience from current gen consoles, what can the appetite be for these games. No way people pick up all three. I can't imagine the CoD: Ghost servers being empty on Xbox One or PS4, but will BF4 and TF draw players away?

I'd give you two days max before you never want to eat another pancake again.

I don't think COD gamers are people who buy consoles in their first year. COD gamers play 1 game, and they aren't going to pay $500 to play it when they can do it on their current system.

There hasn't been a single good CoD game since CoD. It wouldn't make any difference, since it would have been dwarfed under the whole DRM thing.

CoD games really do not make a lot of money for MS. The profit margin on the console is probably only slim. And 1 game/year isn't exactly paying the bills.

@mosespippy: These types of games on next gen consoles will be so weird. All the press coverage will focus on this version but the player base will still largely be on old hardware. You would think that next gen CoD or BF would be a system seller, but I agree with you, people will wait.

The last time consoles launched the fervent cult didn't exist around shooters, neither did the annualized franchise. I don't remember people saying, 'wow, I'm going to buy a launch PS3 or 360 because of Madden.' Now MS is talking about these games as if everyone who cares will bum rush to buy an Xbox One. There's something that's off about that.

I keep seeing post/articles about what if game x, y, z, were console exclusive and thinking that would be suicide. How many early adopters will buy these games? There's no way they can sustain the multiplayer audience. Early adopters are fickle gamers like myself, devoted to a small handful of games on a regular basis, and ready to move on to the another game after a few months.

Bullshit. Pancakes are food perfection dammit!

Activision would never have even one CoD game made an exclusive to one console, Microsoft would have to compensate them so much money that it's money better spent on producing more first party content.